Hey, you! Yeah YOU!
How come you haven't registered? Have you read about our new blue star program? We are donating $10 of each blue star subscription to the Blue Ribbon Coalition to ensure that we will have trails to recreate on for years to come.
Our blue star comes with all the benefits of a red star such as 10 second searching, blue/red star member only giveaways, access to the private blue/red star member forums, etc.

Just put this up on THR, but thought you guys might find it interesting.

Here's my take on a wireless camera setup. I've seen the versions that use a camcorder and a transmitter. I like this better because of the availability of IP cameras with pan/tilt/zoom that you can access and view on your laptop as a webpage.

What you need.
A) IP camera. Can be purchased from Newegg, Amazon etc. I bought the cheapy Panasonic BLC1A just to do a proof of concept type deal. I'd like to get one that has more resolution, and also pan/tilt/zoom.

B) A wireless link. Some IP cameras have WIFI built in, but I went with a wireless router and a wired IP camera due to the ease of tweaking the router and adding a better antenna. The Buffalo HP routers are nice (use DD-WRT). I am also using a 7dBi panel antenna. I have a few other antennas I'll be testing.

C) A way to power everything while it's down range. I am using a car battery and a couple power supplies. The router wants 5 Vdc, and the camera 9 Vdc. You can buy the power supplies off Ebay and also hobby stores (RC people use them for various things). $5 or so each.

D) A laptop to view the camera with at the bench. I originally planned on using a second Wifi router to receive at the bench and then connect the laptop to it. The router would certainly outperform the Laptops wifi especially after sticking a better antenna on it and cranking up the power. For now, I found I was able to get the range I needed.

I've tested range using the Buffalo router with stock antenna directly to my laptop. I ran out of room in the neighborhood testing (300 yards +). I don't expect 1000 yards being a problem.

So anyways, the setup looks like this

Here's what you get on your laptop. The camera shows up as a webpage that you simply point your browser at. Those are 22 cal. holes and also in the shade. If you had a fancier camera, you'd also be able to move the camera around and zoom
________WASHINGTON MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY

Camera is further away from the target than it looks. You'd have to miss by 18" to hit it. I plan on armoring the camera anyways. You can also put the camera off to the side and further away. That's just the last placement I tried, so it got pictures taken of it.

Actually, you just gave me an idea! Nice technical work there so maybe you could get this to work! How about this. A spotting scope with a camera attached to an eyepiece. Then a display screen at your shooting bench. That way you just have to glance over, or open eye it to see your target. No components out at the target, no wireless, much more compact.

Can you resolve 22 caliber bullet holes at 1k+ yards with your spotting scope? Heck, even 600 yards can be problematic even with a good one. Ever dealt with mirage? The image quality on this is independent of range (until you lose your link of course).

Quote:

I'm going to do some video at my 2000 yard target later this month. I'm just going to set up my digital camera 100 yards short of the target. This would work better, but it seems fairly complicated.

2000 yards should be doable. I'd probably need to improve the bench side of the link. Another Buffalo router with an upgraded antenna and the power cranked up would do it I bet. Are you trying to see where you hit, or are you trying to record video for youtube or whatever? The ip cameras don't have very good image quality.

There's nothing complicated about it at all. You're just taking a wifi router and an IP camera and powering them with a battery. The antennas screw right on.

Quote:

Nice setup, people could also use a small battery out of a UPS and get more portable.

Doesn't have to be a 12V car battery, I just had some handy. The power supplies accept a pretty wide range of input voltages (up to 40V IIRC). I might track down some LiPo batteries in the future. That's actually the battery out of one of my broke ass Heeps (both are broken right now ).
________Live sex webshows

2000 yards should be doable. I'd probably need to improve the bench side of the link. Another Buffalo router with an upgraded antenna and the power cranked up would do it I bet. Are you trying to see where you hit, or are you trying to record video for youtube or whatever? The ip cameras don't have very good image quality.

If you're looking for something small a 1.2ghz 1000mw transmitter/receiver from ebay with high gain antennas will work. However the wifi/dd-wrt has a lot of benefits, like repeaters for unlimited range, multiple cameras, less interference and security. Also a car battery isn't needed, judging by the listed watt ratings you could run these off of a rc car 5000mah battery for close to 10 hours.

A big reason I went the Wifi route is that I didn't want to deal with having a stupid TV monitor on the bench. The transmit end may seem complicated, but the receive end on the bench is nice. Just wip out your laptop and that's it.
________Leather live

Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the Pirate4x4.Com : 4x4 and Off-Road Forum forums, you must first register.
Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

** A VERIFICATION EMAIL IS SENT TO THIS ADDRESS TO COMPLETE REGISTRATION!! **

Email Address:

Log-in

User Name

Remember Me?

Password

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.